One of the benefits of being Russian is that there is never a lack of constructive advice on sensitive social matters like immigration and ethnic and religious tolerance - not only from Russia's own liberals, but from friendly foreign countries and international nongovernmental organizations that are glad to instruct Russia on its duty to move toward the democratic standards of an open society.

Russia need only adopt advanced Western models, they insist, and all will be well.

Then again, maybe not. Recently, the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia made the following statement in a report on anti-Jewish violence in EU countries: "France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the U.K. witnessed rather serious anti-Semitic incidents such as numerous physical attacks and insults directed against Jews and the vandalism of Jewish institutions - synagogues, shops, cemeteries." Evidently, even some of Europe's longest-established democracies are not immune to such ugly behavior.

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